


in some language, "belief" must have a gentle rhyme

by shiningjedi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Jedi Of The Republic
Genre: But Like It Doesn't Have To Be Read That Way, Fluff, Gen, Headcanoned Autistic Character, Parent-Child Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 17:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14169717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiningjedi/pseuds/shiningjedi
Summary: After Mace's appointment to the role of Master of the Order, he escapes through the Temple to try and find a place to think. He is met by Cyslin Myr, his old mentor, from whom he has at least one lesson still to learn.  Emotions may be involved as well, just a little.





	in some language, "belief" must have a gentle rhyme

**Author's Note:**

> Reading the "Jedi Of The Republic" comics helps a little with context, and by a little I mean gives us out only official Cyslin content, either canon or Legends.
> 
> Yet another mini character study of Mace, because I wanted to give my kickass non-binary space parent Cyslin at least /one/ work here, damnit!
> 
> Written for a prompt on Tumblr - "A Teaching Moment".

Mace slipped through the Temple corridors quickly, head pounding and still reeling from the shock of his appointment, and jolted in shock, swiftly back-pedaling, when he almost walked right into another Jedi lurking there as if waiting. They were an imposing, venerable Mirialan, wearing dark robes, a headband, and one of the proudest smiles that he had seen in his life.

“My Master,” said Mace, recovering quickly to bow low, and they waved their hand in almost flamboyant dismissal of the title, laughter lines crinkling up at the corners of their piercing, steel-blue eyes. They had woven their hair into silver braids for the occasion, he noticed, and felt suddenly almost sheepish, like a Padawan again, in his worn-out boots and slightly rumpled tunics.

They bowed back deeper, despite their evident age, and he had to restrain the instinct to grab their arm and brace them from the possibility of a fall – they caught his tiny motion before he managed to still it, and laughed at him gently.

“Come now, _my_ Master, do you move to catch Master Yoda whenever he bends down?”

He grunted, answering the joke with a taught dismissal instead of risking a response to the unfamiliar honorific. “Master Yoda doesn’t bow.”

Their eyes twinkled with humor. “That was not a stature-based joke, was it?”

He shook his head too quickly, mildly appalled at the jesting insinuation, and his skull burned in pain – their hand fell softly, as a grounding, on his shoulder as they guided them both to a seat on a low bench.

They were silent for a moment, Mace leaning back and drawing rejuvenation from the Force – and it was rude to speak for another, especially one his elder, but he suspected that his mentor was as well. Eventually, though, they cleared their throat and he opened his eyes and gave them a lopsided smile.

“Thank you,” he murmured, and Cyslin Myr wrapped their arms around his torso and beamed – he didn’t need to look to know that they had teared up, but he did anyway, then quickly away again out of embarrassment.

“No, thank _you_ ,” they replied, and he felt his own throat burning with emotion too.

“For what?” he managed, closing his eyes again, and he opened them to see them motioning to their cheeks, and the dark diamonds spilling over them like fresh water.

“You have new tattoos,” he said blankly, and they nodded – he was missing something, and he knew it, but he couldn’t work out quite what.

“I told you that I liked a challenge.”

_What -_

_**Oh**._

“You said that of teaching me-”

“Yes-”

“Of training me to a knight-”

“No.”

It took him a little while to work it out, but his head started swimming again as he did. “Then of what?” he asked, despite knowing well – it was already in him, the voices echoing “ _aye_ ” in unison and then “ _the Master of the Order_ ”.

All those years, wrestling with his own Darkness, thinking he was taken on as a Padawan only to ensure he would not Fall, not that he ever truly had _potential,_ all those years believing the childhood peers who’d called him _failure_ and laughed through mouths that he had bloodied, all those years shocked, confused, disbelieving when he’d beened granted Knighthood, then Mastery, then offered a seat on the High Council for the creation of a skill that surely only wrought more death than peace…

...had Cyslin… ?

...truly…. ?

“I always believed in you,” they whispered, and he started crying outright, too, wept like a youngling into the arms of the being he was now taller than, into the arms of the being that he now somehow outranked.

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Self-projecting onto Mace Windu? It's more likely than you think.


End file.
